A Process can read input text from its standard input stream, typically the keyboard. By redirecting the StandardInput stream, you can programmatically specify the input. For example, instead of using keyboard input, you can provide text from the contents of a designated file or output from another application.

Note

To use StandardInput, you must set ProcessStartInfo.UseShellExecute to false, and you must set ProcessStartInfo.RedirectStandardInput to true. Otherwise, writing to the StandardInput stream throws an exception.

The following example illustrates how to redirect the StandardInput stream of a process. The example starts the sort command with redirected input. It then prompts the user for text, and passes that to the sort process by means of the redirected StandardInput stream. The sort results are displayed to the user on the console.